1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally in the field of semiconductor circuits. More specifically, the present invention is in the field of semiconductor die packaging with integrated power supply voltage regulation.
2. Background Art
Advances in semiconductor integrated circuit fabrication processes and digital standard cell and semi-custom application specific integrated circuit, “ASIC”, design methodologies have given rise to digital and mixed analog and digital signal integrated circuits requiring separate power supplies for various parts including a unique voltage for the digital core power supply, and a second, unique power supply voltage for the input/output pad ring, and possibly a third power supply voltage for miscellaneous analog functions. While this advancement brings the advantage of reduced core power consumption as a product of one-half the total gate capacitances times the gate voltages squared times the switching frequency, there arises the problem of regulation of these additional voltages. With the advent of system-on-chip technologies, designers of these devices have only begun to address this requirement for regulating multiple power supply domains on-chip. Given prior art, it often finally remains the responsibility of the top-level system integrator to provide this variety of power supply voltage domains at the board level and not chip level, obscuring the costs of the total solution implementing the prior art system-on-chip. Often both the system-on-chip designer and the top-level integrator, not having the time, resources, or background of experience in power supply design tend to choose simple-to-implement, but less than optimal linear voltage regulation cores or devices to provide these plural voltage domains from a single supply voltage. When implemented using a linear voltage regulation device, a substantial amount of the power savings realized by accepting a lower core voltage is lost in the form heat dissipated through the linear regulator's transistors, by design. The overall solution cost and power consumption may actually rise if this heat dissipated in the linear voltage regulator is great enough to require additional components to provide forced air convection cooling. Also, the system-on-chip itself could require additional heat-sinking components or else suffer reduced reliability due to the implementation of a linear voltage regulator on-chip, thereby driving-up hidden costs of the total solution.
Therefore, there exists a need for a novel and reliable system and method to provide power to multiple voltage domains of semiconductor dies to overcome the problems faced by conventional semiconductor die packages integrating a linear voltage regulation power supply. More specifically, there exists a need for a novel and reliable system and method to optimally provide power to multiple voltage domains within semiconductor dies while reducing overall system cost, power consumption, and heat dissipation.